Seth & Ryan Klein and Chase Williams: Scaling Your In-House Talent

BluShark Digital

Welcome to the SEO Insider with your host Seth Price, founder of BluShark, taking you inside the world of legal marketing and all things digital.

Seth Price

Hey, everybody. We are thrilled to be here today with Ryan Klein and Chase Williams, SEOs who have come from in-house to their own agency. Thrilled to have you on the SEO Insider today. Tell, tell me about your agency and your journey. How did you get here?

Ryan Klein

I've been legal marketing for about 12 years. I worked at a traditional digital marketing agency in Central Florida working with all sorts of businesses and, believe it or not, really loved working with lawyers. And I tell that story all the time, and people are like, you know, all these different industries, like lawyers had said, yeah, they're driven, they're motivated, they're no BS, and I always liked working with them in their campaigns. So, I went from the agency working with multiple industries to right in house with several law firms. I started with a criminal defense law firm, that, Seth, I know you know near and dear with that fellow, Billy Umansky, worked with him for quite some time, and then went off to a law firm in South Florida, did PI for, for a bit. So, worked in house for a while, did some consulting, and then my work was done, working in house, I guess you could say once, you know, we can say in the SEO world rank for everything, if you will. It's kind of appealing to kind of take what I learned and try to scale it in the agency.

Seth Price

That's awesome. You know, one of the things that I've sort of noticed over the years as we took an in house team and turned it into an agency was that it's one thing to do work well for a site, right? As you said, like if you put all of your effort into one site, day in, day out, but to do it at scale, takes a bunch of different skill sets beyond, I think, just, you know, one person getting one site ranked. And the advantage, I think when you start doing it and diversifying, and part of the reason I could speak for myself, when we, when we spun into an agency was it allowed us to keep talent that we couldn't have kept otherwise your case in point, right? That was too hard for an organization to keep somebody at your caliber to themselves because you build and grow and wanted more. Talk to me a little bit about some of the things that you've experienced, the differences between doing this on the agency side versus doing this in house.

Ryan Klein

More than happy, more than happy to answer your question, and what's great about the questions is, you'll be answering them too, we'll hear both, both sides of it. So, I guess one of the first thing was, so partnered with Chase here and, business partners since day one, mean that University of Central Florida, and we didn't really break into the legal just yet, like it wasn't immediately legal, it was kind of an agency start and we worked with kind of what we could for quite some time and it wasn't for years until we kind of broke into that niche. So, I guess one of the... Chase, you got something?

Chase Williams

I was gonna say like, starting a business, like you always see those silly Instagram things. Like you gotta go knocking on doors and like, we would literally knocked on doors, like we were living in Manhattan at the time, literally knocking on restaurants and bars and we started doing their social media and their SEO, and it was just, you know, it was almost like an episode of The Sopranos at one point where we're trying to get paid and we're like, how, you know, this person has paid us in three months, he still wants us to work. So, it was definitely like, we gotta get out of this, we got to figure out a niche, we gotta do something different.

Seth Price

Well though, I smiled a couple levels that your story reminds you so many other things. One, sort of what, you know, I can speak for myself, we've attempted over the years to work with some people who had come out of Fine Law, and one of the situations we had was somebody pre COVID, who worked for Fine Law, we literally, I think walk through office buildings and attract a person who was able to knock on doors and be able to walk in sell stuff. And part of the reason that Fine Law and Martindale Hubbell, prior to their sale or brands, was so successful was that they had the search product, right? They had Westlaw and LexisNexis, respectively. And so, people were constantly walking into offices, and that many of the relationships that lasts to this day, some of the people were still at Fine Law, so let people have spot out and taking the people with them. That, all of that was that, you know, that, you know, shoe leather going in and meeting people. I understand completely that we are in multiple different verticals, and restaurants can barely pay their bills as is, so you're going to come last. That must have been quite an experience trying to not just get in the door but find somebody who is economically viable to continue to pay.

Ryan Klein

So, the first question I have for you, because it's like, the interesting moment, you know, when you're like, okay, we're doing this, we're doing the agency, we're going to work with law firms, and you're used to creating a strategy and plans and having your tight knit crew If that's just working solely on your, you know, several digital properties. When you start kind of taking that model or that format and applying it elsewhere like, you want, and I'm sure your experience, you want to provide that kind of experience to do for yourself and dedicate, you know, hours and hours and hours, but you can't limit that scope. So, like, what was the first moment where like, we can still have a fantastic campaign without necessarily like, having to be all over it day in, day out? If you know what I mean.

Seth Price

You know, it's interesting, because I think that this was sort of like, working smarter, not harder. So, we, like in Moscow, right? You could study like 20 hours a day and kill yourself, but I think the people who did the best were the people that figured out what was important, worked on that, learn that and then kicked ass on tests. Like, the people who killed themselves 24/7, and at present company included, at times weren't doing as well as people who understood what was most important. So, I think that at scale, especially as you start to see multiple sites, you see what is working and what's not, and by focusing on the things that actually move the needle, you're able to deliver results, that there's a nervous energy, whether it be in school or whether it be in marketing, where you can spin your wheels a lot, and that I feel that what I, what I love is to watch, okay, we see this work. Now, let's replicate it. We see this not working, let's not do this. So, that understanding how precious time is as, as a variable, you know, one of the companies that it was early in the legal space called Nifty, a guy named Mike Ramsey, was an awesome, awesome guy, one of the things he did early on once he started, charging by the hour, and I didn't love that, I liked the idea. Part of the reason I got into this was I hated billable hours, and this world was like, hey, people can pay a flat monthly fee and we do all this work. And I think that one of the things that agency owners look at is, you know, squeaky wheel gets oiled, so very often you can show, you've seen this, that if you have a client that people who love or fear, that they may spend a ton of time with that client beyond the economics of what they paid. And so, one of the tricks as an agency to stay afloat is you have to make sure you're responsible and putting in the resources that are needed as the web has gotten more competitive, right? Nothing you don't see on a day in and day out basis, that stuff that was easier to dot three, four years ago. It's harder to do now, and things have become more competitive, and Google has made some changes, that we are required to figure out how many resources in that, before. A few $1,000 might move the needle. It now may take a lot more in resources, and that if you don't have the client willing to invest in that, there are certain things that can't be done, which means that you're likely not going to be set up for success. And it's a constant balancing act because, you know, I would say, and I'm going into full circle here, I'll bring it back to you, which is, you know, you've seen this, I'm sure as we have, when we first started we had people that came to us from other agencies, and I was only shocked because some of them were very good agencies, but I realized that one of the odd thing about digital agencies specifically was when people sign a contract for a number, it rarely goes up meaningful. I think they're starting to, we're starting to see that break and change, but that legacy contracts only had so many resources. And while that might have been enough to get the needle moved early on, as it's gotten more competitive, we've seen that people look at it differently. And it's interesting, because you would think, oh, I'm just gonna go to right, right to Chase and say, you know what? I want to up my budget. But like, there's something about the human dynamic that very often people say, you know, what? I look at you in this world, for this price point, you're more than capable of doing something at a higher price point, but people sort of pigeon holed you psychologically into that and so that, I think that's one of the tough things for agencies to deal with. And for law firms, it's very rare that somebody says, hey, I want to go double my spend with you. People just don't think that way, but if the world has changed the amount of labor and resources it takes to move the needle, interviews with links or content, etc, that very often a budget that was set seven years ago may not be able to be a viable budget now to get done what somebody needs to accomplish their goals.

Ryan Klein

Real quick, it sounds, are you eavesdropping in our leadership meeting earlier this week? This, it's a very, very real timely dilemma. And, you know, Chase and I, we...

Seth Price

It's a constant one, and that, you know, there's one thing where your consultant may say to you, hey, we should raise x percent per year, and that's awesome. And most of us didn't, most of us got in we're thankful that so we want to pay us for their work, but given what's required today, the competitive landscape, particularly in PI, that, you know, a few $1,000 a month doesn't move the needle, and that if you don't have those resources, and it's really tough because when you have that conversation, I mean this is talking agency to agency to a certain number of people are going to be like, you know what? I'm going to try this brand instead, and I know for ourselves we've had a lot of success, you asked, you know, you know, the fact that you can't work on it all the time, I've seen the opposite, which was we got some amazing results for limited resources earlier on. People before us, like the generation before we were even in business, you know, pay a big and put a website up and it worked. Now, you need to do work, you know let's say 5, 4, 5, 6 years ago, you know, it took work, now it's exponentially more. And so how do you have those conversations, because you know that you crushed it with what you were charging a few years ago, it's likely not to be able to move the needle the same way now, and that those can be some tough conversations.

Chase Williams

It all goes back to talent too. So, I know on our end, we want to perform in a very high level, so we're, we're not paying a marketing coordinator, the same we were paying seven years ago. I mean, it's like almost double like, a like...it's double.

Seth Price

I can tell you that it's been doubled during COVID almost. Yeah, I mean, it's not quite double, but it's significant. And, look, we both know that talent is a limiting force if there's a huge opportunity cost to training somebody. So, now you're dealing with, you know, we're seeing inflation in everything right? You know, everything is now significantly more, flights, hotels, everything has gone through the roof. And people, your talent is demanding that we had the great resignation that people are getting been bouncing, and if you have somebody that you like, you train, that you want for the future, you want to make it worth their while, your margins change dramatically, no different than if somebody's doing it in house, right? And part of the reason that we have a business is because the in house isn't easy, I can speak for myself, you know, we put ads out in DC market for talent. And historically, we would get people in the six figures with SEO on their resume from an association, but with no meaningful experience that you guys will find valuable. And so, each of these instances, you know, you have, the next opportunity if you can't do in house, if you can't, you know, if you can't get people from the outside, is training people themselves, and that it's always a back and forth. I apologize, I think I don't know if it's because Biden has COVID. We've had presidential or vice-presidential motorcade going up our block, day to day. I go to the like, literally, I assume was the vice president not the president, but like, this, you know, 50 car motorcade goes by with a limo with US flags on it, so something's going on at the White House today.

Ryan Klein

I can pick up what you're saying with the talent. And I'm sure you've had all sorts of really fun experiences in the past couple of years. And like, hiring in house, let's say there's like, three categories. We have an in-house content team; so, content is like a team. AMs client experience and SEOs, and content so it has been pretty straightforward because you get the samples, you can see, this is not very good or it is good, and it's been kind of easy to vet that. AM's you can probably, you know, figure it if they're going to be a good fit after a bit, but SEOs and especially since, you know, after all this SEO podcast, that is extremely difficult kind of gauntlet, you know, to find people that are like kind of the real deal there, because...

Seth Price

I've made more mistakes in hired talent, you know, like on spec, and it's terrible, because anybody who's like, I think snobbishly, in particular with legal, right? To first legal as a level of competitiveness that most don't, and I have, we've had a very hard time hiring from the outside. Thankfully, my partner in this venture is really good with culture and building a team, and we have a huge fellowship program, so we have people in school, and then even post school who come here, but who rotate through different departments to see what they like, and about half of those people end up as employees when they graduate. And that if we didn't do that, we will be dead. It was like a summer associate program in a law firm, who week, we don't see resumes with talent, and when they even with the name SEO on a resume is claiming dollars that don't justify the talent, at least in my opinion. They're nice people, but they just don't know what it takes to move the needle at our level of clients that we both deal with. And so, I'm always very, it's been a struggle I would wish to have, and one of the things that I push for in both Price Benowitz, the law firm, and with the agency is to constantly be recruiting, but it's not like they're SEOs fall off trees that I love. And just like law firms, you take like Chris bath, is one of these big corporate firms in New York where I was, I spent some time before law school as an analyst, and in doing so, they, historically things change, never hired laterals, they only took people in their summer class, and then maybe they'd hire them straight out of law school that everybody came with no experience, so that they could train them the correct way. This is how you formulate a letter; this is how you formulate a brief, we do it our way, in this setup there are no bad habits. And in some respects, we've sort of had to follow that model, because we just don't like a lot... Now, you want the inspiration, you want new ideas coming, but we've had to sort of supplement, going to conferences, listen to podcasts, you know, doing webinars, and just networking to bring those new ideas to the table because, for the most part, we can get with exceptions, many of the people out there on the market, you can some with names don't necessarily have the goods.

Chase Williams

It's like, I think that the SEO title is the absolute catfish of, of all jobs. Like, we, I, we brought people on our team, we interview, like we have probably had like, six or seven interviews. We give them like, theoretical SEO questions, they do very well. When we can we're like, this person is a bullshitter.

Seth Price

And again, because of that we haven't, we saw that early on, we just haven't gone through that process. I'm just sort of jaded. Not that we, you know, and I see this, I'm trying to think, I just saw an ad posting for one of the big nonlegal SEO agencies really, really top name, you know, saw the ad post, and it was like, you know, please apply no experience needed, because once you know what you're doing part of it is, and they're part of the reason the agency works well, right? If you're in house, you have to learn everything, right? That's why in house is such a tough thing for a smaller firm, because, yes, the person might know content, but will they know links, and they may know links between the technical and the technical community page, like there's so many different skill sets that are needed. And so, for me, at scale, once you know what you're doing, and that's where I feel like we're fortunate once you have a methodology that works, not that you're constantly not experimenting and checking new stuff, but the idea is executing on that work, can you put the labor behind it? So, we were talking earlier in the conversation loosely like nifty is example they billed by the hour versus you're the flat monthly fee. All flat monthly fees, whether it be a legal case, like a criminal case, or whether it be for an agency, or essentially reverse engineering an hourly rate, and then figuring out how to do that in a profitable way. You know, if you look, at the end of the day, most agencies have X margin, and then if you have your hours allow for the labor cost to be reasonable, you could have something to take home at the end of the day. If you're not careful, I'm sure you've seen this over the history of the agency, there are times you can take your eye off the ball, you can spend so much on labor, that you end up cutting into the fact like why am I running this business, I'd be better off working for a firm. And so, you're constantly that cat and mouse between, you know, figuring out how to have a methodology and scale it, but hoping for that silver bullet or that fairy dust to come from the outside person as you've seen it, I've seen myself, you know, much easier said than done, and more often than not the window dressing or the catfish example you gave, it's not quite what the, the Facebook profile is professing.

Chase Williams

Yeah we track all of our time internally, and there's definitely moments we have, where we realize, okay, for the past three months, we've been, we've been paying to work for this person. So something needs to change whether, whether it's a scope of work, or going back to the client saying hey, you know, we're trying to get your results and to get those results, we need to increase the scope for your billable. So, it's definitely a conversation that we have internally very often.

Seth Price

Yeah, I, look, and that's what's so interesting about agencies because like a lot of numbers will speak, you know, on a semi regular basis, but there's a certain amount of like keeping cards close to death, but as you see, there are truisms. Other things that we've talked about on this podcast, agency to agency owner, you know, the struggle over, you know, exclusivity as the world becomes more global, and people have offices at all different places. These are the different things where it gets, these are tough conversations. And before I had an agency, I remember agency friends talking about all the issues we've talked about today and more, you know, that was their struggle with their agencies. So, very often, one of my mentors who had an early agency, you know, he always talked to me before I had an agency about the struggles and issues that he was facing, and then once I ran an agency of like, oh, that's what he was talking about. It was like, I would always have these moments where I was like, oh, that's, that's what he meant, like, you know, and, walking into an agency where you see, you referred to earlier, what you need to pay people some of it is inflation and the job market, but part of it is If you have good people, and you have them for five years and 10 years, and hopefully more then a person wants that stability, and that if you, you want to be able to pay somebody enough that you're not losing your senior people. I mean, that, that's, you know, look at the account management type position, the loss of an account manager isn't just a loss of employee, but it's the relationship with all those clients, and that, yes, you can get a new person, but I can speak as a lawyer, having been an Avvo advertiser prior to the sale yet brands, it was so stupid, I looked at my sales reps as consultants that can help me figure out how to spend my money well, and every nine months, there'll be a turnover, and when sometimes less, and it was like you finally are comfortable, you finally trusted somebody, they're getting the value. So, you know, you took a look at expenses, it's not like a straight line like, as people become super valuable to you, you want to be able to pay them not just market but slightly more than market, which goes into the economics of what you're charging your clients.

Ryan Klein

I'm talking about briefly what you're saying about SEOs. I mean, like the aim the relationship, I mean, the value becomes, especially if they're upside, especially if they're scaling with the clients, I mean, that's a whole other side of the value too. But SEOs, I feel like almost like at every corner you're dealing with some sort of like, significant catch 22. So, you mentioned like the specialization, from our standpoint, we'd love to have like, this guy, or gal is fantastic link building, they're like changing the way that we do links, and then they come on board, and SEOs can be very growth oriented, they come on board and say, yeah, I'll do links, but I want to learn, you know, local and I want to learn technical, and then it's like, well, we want to utilize this.

Seth Price

We don't play that game, are, I mean, partly from day one, I mean, you've heard me speak early, early on, it was, it was content, links, technical, local, and paid the fifth element. Now, LSA is a subset of paid, but each group, that's why during a fellowship, we have people rotate to figure out where they want to be, but, to me, like, I don't want dabblers, it's true as well, right? Because you have clients that do PI like my firm would do PI, we do criminal, we have family and trust and estates. I don't want to trust and estates person doing a criminal case, I don't want the family lawyer doing a PI case. For me, it's like you want people who are really good in their lane and stay in their lane. Now, somebody says, hey, I want to, I want a career change, I hope to be able to help them and do that, and we promoted people from, let's say, links to accounts, and that's their new home, but I really don't want people dabbling in whether the Master of None, I want them to be as good as they can, because assuming that we know what we're doing on the execution of something. Now, the question is, can we have the people and the manpower or womanpower to do that?

Ryan Klein

Yeah, I would say with like, our team, like, there's definitely like a focus on, on specialization, there is like awareness, and there's involvement like there, there will be like, exposure to it. And, of course, we would never want to be like, this person's a ten at, ten at links, and they're 4 out of 10 on, you know, content optimization, but they just want to switch it up and let's just do it for the sake of doing it like, you want everyone to operate at their highest level. But yeah, there's always that growth, growth, you know, mindset, there's always like, what's next? That comes with, like SEO too, you know, people that are like, you know, I'm doing this, this is my, what my day looks like now, this is what my day is gonna look like a year from now, that's always like the thing, that's generational too.

Seth Price

Yeah, I feel fortunate. I feel like our methodology has been in each of our silos, that the management within those has given opportunity and pay. And so, that we've been able to sort of take the best and brightest and continue to give them different opportunities. I, with the growth that, we've had a dream you guys have had that the there is no shortage of need for leadership. And so, you know, we haven't lost many people that we've wanted to keep, you know, it's a pretty small list, and that the ability to find people a whole growth path, I think, yes, obviously, very, very important. And that, you know, something that if you don't do that, you will, you will lose talent, it's not always easy, right? Because I've seen over and over again, of law firm and agency, there are times when you promote somebody from, you know, to use the terminology, from the tactician to the manager, and technician to the manager, and that when you do that, not cut out for that next piece, you know, and that that's a frustrating piece, because you, there are times where you want to promote somebody, and you want to give them a career path, but you realize they're really good at links, content, tech, or whatever it is, and they're really bad at managing people. I'll share with you a story early on that made us successful, and what I was starting, when was still a combination of Price Benowitz in house. This was actually before we started the agency, I had a situation where we had a person who was a, you know, very competent SEO, but they were the most senior person, so they were managing in house too. And they were an awful manager, their communication was terrible, their instincts weren't right. And I had a life moment where David Brenton, who was coming up through the ranks, you've been a fellow with the firm, done marketing, and I was like, okay, I was wonder kid here, you know, let me try this, and this was a light moment. So, I had this person who was making a salary, and I said, look, I'm not going to demote your salary, but I have to allow this person to manage and run the room. So, the first thing, and people see this at law firms a lot with, let's say, an operations person, and then a COO. And I have a friend going through this right now, where moving, if you go to the person operations, say, hey, you're not going to be the COO, and you're going to be, you know, and I'm going to cut your pay, that's not going to work, but if money stays the same, there are people, I mean, there are people that go off a little bit of a rant. I remember interviewing for jobs, or whatever we talked about having people who manage, and that was, the number of people that you manage always became indicative of how important or how much you progressed in your career. But, as you know, right? If I gave you the opportunity to sit there and just do SEO all day, we didn't have to pay well, you have to hire anybody, have to fire anybody, you have to do anything, you might love that. The management comes with a whole set of headaches and issues, and so one of the things that I look at when I look at these situations is we took this one person and said, hey, that's what we're not going to demote you money wise, but I need this guy to run the department, and that lasted like three years and it was a wonderful run, and we wouldn't have BluShark today, had, we not, had not taking that chance. But I think that knowing when somebody can manage and when somebody really may want to manage but they shouldn't, that decision alone can make or break an organization.

Ryan Klein

We have this conversation all the time, I'm sure that a lot of agencies are especially in a ramping up and you're getting people that have been working in the industry for years and years and years. And you start off, you know, maybe get some entry level, or one or two years maybe a senior person here and there, but you start bringing on really talented people and it doesn't become a seniority game anymore. It's like you don't get the promotion just because you've been in as long as it's then you start going head to head with people that are really kicking ass from day one because they've been in it for a while and they may earn it over the seniority. It's an interesting crossroads because, you know, you navigate that and you have those kinds of tough conversations with people that are like why put in my time and it's like, well, is it time? Is it loyalty? Is it talent? Like, what's going to... I guess it comes down to what's going to benefit the company as a whole. It's not like an individual kind of thing, it's a team thing.

Seth Price

Right, but like it's, and it's multifaceted, right? Because what benefits the company, but at the same time, what's going to keep somebody happy in there. What somebody thinks they want may not be what's really, because if they're a terrible manager, now that's not good for your company, but it's not really a good career path for that person because they're never going to, it's not going to work and they're gonna hit a brick wall over and over again. Very cool. Let's spin, this is great. We got to, we have to make sure we do this again and look forward. You know, it sounds like a busy conference season coming up this fall with a bunch of rescheduled stuff and a bunch of new conferences popping up.

Ryan Klein

In Tempe as always?

Seth Price

Yeah. I'm actually just getting the agenda set from the Business Law Event, so that should be interesting. Chase, any final words?

Chase Williams

No, it's, It's awesome to, you guys have such a similar background, so it's cool to see you guys' riff off one another. There's not many people that have the same background as you two, where it's like you come from, most agency owners don't come from law firms. They just think law succeeding to get into and it's profitable, and that's why they start working in a legal firm, kind of like, I mean, it'd be like me, but I know Ryan and I get a pass for...

Ryan Klein

Just for the record for our listeners, I'm not a lawyer, but I did work, yeah, work in house.

Seth Price

So, I'll leave you with this story. I know I've done a bunch of stories but I'll leave with this for Chase because your background there. My job that I, when I left big law back in like 98, during the first .com bubble. I helped found a company before US law called EZcd.com. Pre-Napster, basically people could choose their, their music, we burn it on a CD, for those who are listening that was something that you put music on before. Anyway, so we mail it out and what you were talking about like with walking door to door, we just bring this back, reminds me like where I would get a lead on some guy that had a catalog because it was all back in life to music. And some guy claimed that he writes all this music. And West 34th Street, I go up in a like in a condo building to like this 60th floor, and there's like this guy meets me and like, the apartment, I just got, it was so shady. They were like curtains between rooms with young women sleeping in each of them, and this guy allegedly had animals like, I can't believe that I am now in the midst of some weird, like music for sale, there's trafficking going on over here. I was just like, this is not for me, but it was like moments. But I did get to hang out and meet Chuck D and a bunch of people from the rap industry because that was one of the few areas where the guys held their own rights, and we were able to do some interesting deals. Douggie fresh, chuck the end, and in other and in my claim to fame was that I taught, I taught Flavor Flav how to use a search engine. And so, that was my claim.

Chase Williams

And that should be on the front of your, of your website. The first thing.

Seth Price

At a trade show, he was holding a Big Mac in one hand and typing words into Google on the other. That was my favorite moment.

Ryan Klein

I feel like the kids in high school or maybe even middle school that used to burn CDs were the first true entrepreneurs out there, because they would be hustling.

Seth Price

Very good. Thanks so much for your time, guys. I look forward to catching up soon.

BluShark Digital

Thank you for tuning in to the SEO insider with Seth Price. Be sure to check back next week for fresh insights into building your brand's online presence. Episodes are available to stream directly on Blushark Digital's website.